I recently read an article that insisted if I’m categorizing my book as “clean” then that must mean all those other books that include certain questionable subject matters, the absence of which makes the book “clean,” must by default be “dirty.” As in, consensual sex is dirty. Profanity is dirty, and so are drugs and alcohol. Good girls don’t do these things, and we’re shaming them if they do.

Weirdly, violence doesn’t seem to be an issue. Apparently violence in any form is both clean and acceptable, so long as no one goes skinny dipping with a knife.

Sex in and of itself is not dirty. I agree with that. What about profanity? Drugs, underage drinking? I don’t think we need to change the word, “clean.” I think we need to rethink it’s flip side, “dirty.”

Not clean ≠ dirty.

So maybe “dirty” is not the right word. Maybe “messy” is a better description. It’s life. Life for a teenager is profanity, is drug and alcohol use, is longing and sex, maybe not for each individual person, but at least for the people around them. They are surrounded by these things daily. Synonyms of messy include: chaotic and muddled. Any of these work as the antithesis of “clean.” Messy and dirty are not the same thing. No one is calling anyone who swore when they backed into their teammate’s car in the school parking lot dirty, but all young lives are messy, aren’t they? To some degree? It’s the depth of that degree that we’re measuring here.

So what if, when a young person escapes (which is what reading is—an escape from the everyday), they choose not to be surrounded by “messy” for a time? Is it wrong to call this escape from reality, “clean?”

The problem with defining the word, “clean” is that everyone has a different definition of what is moral these days. The distinction between right and wrong has been fading for centuries. What is right conduct anymore? Even Common Sense Media, the organization that reviews media based on their suitability for children gives each book and movie a rating in eight separate categories. There’s a feed of what parents say and an entirely separate feed of what kids say. One claims a book has educational value, another calls it smut. We are not going to agree on this.

Maybe instead of “clean” we should call these books, “the world in which we no longer live,” or “the highest form of fantasy.” It just seems like too many words to describe something that really is just a book with a PG rating (no parental guidance needed).